Visions of an Apocalypse
by RabulaTasa
Summary: AU It's not that easy, being green... especially if you're the object of Rav... Her Royal Majesty's affections. That which does not kill you merely prolongs the inevitable. A series of oneshots set in a post-apocalyptic world.
1. Trials

**Disclaimer**: I don't own the Teen Titans.

**Author's Note**: Y'know, it's _amazing_ what a fondue will do to jumpstart one's creative juices. I'm reviving my old _Apocalypse_ series, but to a slightly different tune this time. Think of something like The Sacred and Profane's _Opposites Attract_ (a bunch of oneshots in the same AU) except less fluffy (mostly), and less frequently updated (entirely).

A warning: _the relationship between Raven and Garfield will be abusive_. She isn't herself anymore, and I'm playing with that. Bad things will happen to Garfield at Raven's hands. If you can't handle that, then this is probably not a story I'm interested in you reading. That said, this series is _not_ in _any_ way, shape, or form an endorsement of physically, verbally, or emotionally abusive relationships. Just so everyone is clear on that. If anyone jumps down my throat, I just might lose my mind.

_The fiery trials through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation.  
_-Abraham Lincoln

* * *

_**Trials**_

"Do you love her?"

The green man jumped in surprise, startled as much by the question as he was by the presence of the questioner. Turning from his current task (alphabetizing the Queen's _extensive_ literary collection), he directed his attention to girl ('_woman_,' he corrected himself) who had posed the query.

He took a moment to study her as he pondered the question. His interrogator stood barely an inch taller than he, although given his rather… _diminutive_… stature, that was no great accomplishment. She wore the same plain floor-length gray robes she had worn since her final pubescent growth spurt, leaving her entire figure obscured beneath the loose-fitting cloth. Even her hands were obscured, tucked into the opposing sleeve of her garb. Her heavy hood made sure that even her face was hidden from the world, when it was up.

At the moment, however, the hood was down, as it always was when (and _only_ when!) she spoke with the man she was currently addressing. Her face betrayed her genealogy, for even if her naturally purple locks were highly _unusual_ among the human population, only _one_ source could possibly provide their child with four eyes.

But even if she had her mother's eyes in _number_, Ava's eyes were exactly the same green as her father's. And as her only physical resemblance to the man, she considered them to be her best feature.

"If you're asking about your mother," Garfield finally said, setting down the armload of books on the floor, "then the answer is most emphatically _yes_."

The answer did not please his daughter, and she did not even _attempt_ to disguise her distaste. "I don't see _how_ you can," she sneered, "not with the way she treats everyone, _you_ most of all."

Her father snorted. She had a point of sorts; the Queen certainly wasn't what most people would call 'kind.' 'Cruel' would be more likely.

"I love her because I love her," he replied. "It's simply how it is. I fell for her before her Changing, and she's essentially the same person now, even if it's hard to see through the layers of her…" he chose his words carefully, "… her _heritage_."

"She demeans you, humiliates you in public and in private, punishes you for things completely outside of your control…"

Garfield snorted again, thinking back to the days of the Titans, when she had done all of the things his daughter was mentioning… albeit, to a much lesser degree than she did nowadays.

"… she goes out of her way to sexually frustrate you…"

He choked, his eyes bulging out of his head. "Ava!" he half shouted, scandalized that his _daughter_, of all people, was talking to him about… _that_.

The girl rolled her eyes at her father's reaction. "Oh, please, don't tell me you thought she's been wearing that strappy leather thing all these years because it was _comfortable_! And that business she does with her tail on your leg-"

"I am _not_ having this conversation with my daughter!" Garfield said, trying to force down the flush in his face. She grinned evilly, and pressed onward.

"Daddy," she drawled, "I'm one hundred and seventeen years old. _Surely_ you don't think I'm…" Whatever she wasn't by virtue of experience, however, was lost on her father as he clapped his hands over his pointed ears and started singing off key. After a few moments, the green man realized that his progeny was no longer threatening to regale him with tales of her… _exploits_… and exposed his ears to the world once more.

As the coast seemed clear, he decided to go on the offensive. "Besides," he countered, "how do you know that your mother and I don't go at it every night like bunnies?" This time, it was Ava's turn to shudder in horror, although she quickly regained her composure.

"When was the last time you and… _Mom_… actually had sex, then?" she asked, taking the direct approach.

Garfield balked. He wasn't going to _lie_ to his daughter, even though he knew he could get away with it. Even though she was capable—being the Queen's daughter and all—she wouldn't go through another person's thoughts without their explicit consent. Suddenly unable to meet Ava's eyes, he muttered inaudibly.

"I'm sorry, what was that?"

"Your conception," he said loudly. "Not before, and not since."

Ava blinked in surprise. She'd been prepared for an answer of _months_, not one of over a _century_. Her usual anger at her mother flared into a fury, and the air around the two began to crackle with power as she teetered toward losing all self-control.

Her father, taken aback at his daughter's reaction, moved quickly into damage-control mode. Snatching her into a hug, he startled her and broke her concentration on her rage. After a few moments he put a small amount of space between them and smoothed back her bangs with one hand, smiling sadly as he did. He wished his daughter and his Queen would get along, and it hurt that _he_ was the primary point of conflict between the two.

Ava struggled with herself, trying her hardest not to upset her father… but he had to know. "Dad, you don't understand… _her_ kind, you know that they have… appetites." She paused, uncertain how to deliver the conclusions her father had refused to arrive at himself. She decided to go with the direct approach. "If she's not sleeping with you, then-"

She found herself cut off by gentle laughter, and her father's green face shaking back and forth. "Ava, if she's trying to hurt me like _that_, then don't you think she would have told me about it? Thrown it in my face? No, she hasn't, because she _isn't_. As hard as you may find it to believe, I am thoroughly convinced that your mother loves me… she just doesn't know how to express it very well."

"But-"

"No 'buts,' dear heart." Sitting down and leaning against the bookshelf, he patted the floor next to him in invitation, which she accepted. Throwing an arm over her shoulder and pulling her close, he looked up towards the ceiling. "Did I ever tell you the story of the Great Canadian Uprising?"

And as he had since she had been a little girl in purple pigtails, her father regaled her with stories until she fell asleep in his arms.

* * *

Her Royal Majesty—more informally known as 'Raven' to those with a sincere deathwish—smiled as she looked down at her lover. The green boy ('_man_,' she corrected herself) lay beside her, immobile, insensate, and unconscious from exhaustion. She had been far gentler with him tonight than she had been most every night previous, but still took care to heal the numerous cuts, bruises, and welts she had inflicted upon him during their lovemaking.

And lovemaking it had been, for even as she couldn't _show_ him what he meant to her after the suppression of her humanity, she still genuinely felt it all the same. As she lovingly ran a glowing hand over his battered body, ensuring that he felt none of the aftereffects of the night's activities in the morning, she gently—as she only was with _him_—reached into his mind and erased any memory of what they had done together that night. It was her double-edged gift to him; that he should spend each day feeling as though he was in a desert of affection, so that he could better appreciate the oasis he stumbled into each night.

And as she left his chambers, setting in place the spells that would keep him safe for the night from any that would do him harm, she resolved to finally address the issue of her rebellious offspring.

If there would be a contest for his affection, it would be _Raven_ who would come out on top. Garfield Logan was _hers_, and Her Royal Majesty was jealous of her possessions.

* * *

**Author's Note**: So between crazy-ass Raven, Daddy's Little Princess, cowed Beast Boy, oddly extended lifespans, and revolutionary Canadians, I think I'm going to have fun with this.


	2. Proof of Concept

**Disclaimer**: I don't own the Teen Titans.

**Author's Note**: Hi.

_Appearances are often deceiving.  
_-Aesop

* * *

_**Proof of Concept**_

At first glance, Her Royal Majesty had hardly changed over the course of the past fifteen years. At thirty-nine years of age, the Queen still had the appearance of an extremely attractive woman still in her mid-twenties… as was to be expected, that being the point in her life when she underwent the Change. She didn't like to think much about her life before the Change, back when her friends were still alive, back when she was still Raven.

Back when she was still _human_.

But that was gone now, and if at first glance she appeared to have remain unchanged—even still sporting the same cloak and leotard combination she had worn all her life—a closer inspection of her person showed the telltale signs of the Change that had occurred in her. Her face, which had for years been trained to reveal not a sign of feeling, now blatantly revealed all sorts of emotions, running the gamut from 'annoyed' to 'enraged.' Where once her body language encouraged even the most inquisitive eye to move right along, now her mere presence silently _demanded_ acknowledgement and obeisance.

And somewhere along the line she grew a tail, whose reason for existence was a mystery even to her. Being telekinetic rendered the four-foot prehensile extension of her spine somewhat redundant, but she was content to leave it alone. If nothing else, it reinforced the fact of her heritage to those that would beg her favor (after Canada, _nobody_ dared to challenge her).

No matter how she had physiologically or emotionally changed, however, there was still one common thread between her old life and her new one, an unbroken link between 'Raven' and 'the Queen.'

That unbroken thread, that link to the past, was green… and at the moment, it was annoying the Hell out of her.

* * *

Even more so than the Queen, Garfield's physical appearance was, at the moment, unchanged from the moment of Raven's Changing. It hadn't always been that way, however. Garfield's apparent eternal youth was artificially induced, an artifact from the Canadian Uprising and its subsequent suppression. But while his current physical features were identical to those at twenty-three, a theoretical undetected observer with more time on his (or her) hands than was healthy these days would notice that Garfield today was _not_ the Beast Boy of old. The most obvious difference, of course, was that Garfield could no longer change shape. Like his youthful appearance, the reason for his inability to transform was artificial and the Queen's handiwork.

The Queen did not smile upon the existence of metahumans, and Garfield found himself in the awkward position of being _grateful_ for Malchior's teachings. If Rav-Her Royal Majesty had lacked the ability to simply suppress and manipulate the superhuman traits of metahumans worldwide, he was not at all certain that there wouldn't have been a second Holocaust.

That she opted for the more difficult, tedious, and morally acceptable choice gave him considerable hope. He didn't believe that she was _evil_, but…

… that he knew that she was capable of doing great evil on a whim, and had in fact done so in retaliation…

Garfield was spiraling downward. He and Raven had lost everyone they knew to… _them_… and after her Changing, he had lost everything but her. And as every day passed, he was becoming less and less certain that he hadn't lost her already, or that he wasn't losing himself as well.

* * *

It was only in the privacy of her quarters that Her Royal Majesty allowed herself to pretend that she was Raven once again. Her meditation mirror had long ago stopped functioning as anything more than a reflective surface, but it still served its purpose in making it easier to converse with herself and to reflect on her thoughts. Holding the mirror in her hand, she held it up to her face and looked at her reflection.

"I am _losing_ him," she told herself. "Every day, he withdraws even further into himself, and I don't know what to do."

"Well," her reflection replied, "what have you tried so far? You mock him, tease him about his intellect (or lack thereof), and on frequent occasion physically throw him around the room for no other reason than the fact that you like the sound he makes whenever he is startled."

"But I have been doing all that and more for twenty years," Raven retorted, "and this depression is a recent phenomenon."

"It started after you put down the Canadian rebellion," agreed her image.

"After they almost killed him," Raven clarified. "But it isn't fear of death that has instilled this melancholy within him; he was in much more danger back as a Titan, and 'melancholy' is hardly a term that would have fit him then."

"On the contrary," argued the face in the mirror, "his life is in much greater danger these days. He lives with _you_, does he not? If you decided to end his life some day, there's very little he could do to save himself. As a Titan, the monsters lived _outside_ of Garfield's home. Now…"

The idea that she might one day lose her temper and slay Garfield was one of the few fears that Her Royal Majesty possessed, and one that she knew would one day occur. After all, she had come close to erasing the boy from existence on more than one occasion back when her humanity remained intact; now, she feared she lacked the self-restraint to avoid such a disaster.

"Even admitting that he lives in greater danger due to his proximity to myself," Raven mused, "that does not explain his mood. Depression has never been his reaction to fear; if anything, he becomes even more garrulous and obnoxious when he's nervous."

"Perhaps he's lonely." The thought sprung from Raven's mouth before she was even aware of its existence, and the shock of it left her reeling. Throwing her mirror carelessly to the side, she levitated over to her bed and lay down on it, staring at the ceiling as she collected her thoughts.

Garfield was _lonely_. They had been very close as Titans, and up to a few years ago they had even been close as Conqueror and Not-Entirely-Voluntary-Permanent-Guest-of-Conqueror. These days, though, she was always too busy to really spend time with him. The world needed her to run things properly, after all! But if she couldn't be his companion, who could? Everybody else that he had been friends with before was long dead, and she would not _permit_ the only sentient life form she could conceivably consider a friend to associate with the unwashed masses outside the castle walls; she had been lax in the past, and it had nearly cost him his life! And certainly none of the people (and "people") that _she_ associated with could possibly be suitable company for him; the humans would simply try and turn him to their own ends in order to curry favor with _her_, and the nonhumans would likely try and eat him.

"So if I cannot _find_ a suitable companion for him," the Queen mused aloud, "then I must somehow create one where none was before." Her eyes widened in sudden realization, and a predatory grin appeared on her face. A black portal appeared in the bed beneath her, and slowly she sank into the inky darkness.

A few moments later all that remained visible of Her Royal Majesty was four red glowing eyes and a toothy smile—not until like that of the Cheshire Cat—and then even that vanished as the portal snapped shut.

* * *

Garfield was playing Rock, Paper, Scissors with himself (and losing) when the world turned upside down and inside out. After a moment of panic and a startled squeak, he recognized the sensation as one of Rav-Her Royal Majesty's magical portals and did his best to relax. He didn't _remember_ having done anything recently to earn the Queen's ire (Just because she can squash you like a bug doesn't mean you shouldn't prank her!), and so when he landed on the floor in his bedroom, he was more confused than nervous.

His confusion deepened as he looked up from his position on the floor to see an amused Queen looking down at him, a knowing smirk on her face. So familiar was the expression that he momentarily forgot himself as he climbed to his feet. "So… what's up, Raven?"

As soon as the words left his mouth, he remembered how _severely_ she punished such slips in etiquette and froze in place, his heart in his throat. A full five seconds passed before he could begin to stammer out his apology, but as he raised his face to go into full-blown damage control mode, two things stopped him in his tracks: the finger on his lips, and the tail wrapping around his leg.

"Please," Her Royal Majesty said, looking like the cat that ate the canary, "call me 'Rae.'"

* * *

Garfield woke up the next morning feeling very… strange. His entire body felt like he had gone ten rounds with Robin, and there was a peculiar weight on his chest. Trying his best to ignore the pain and discomfort, the former changeling turned on his side and tried to fall back asleep. He was on the cusp of blissful unconsciousness when a sudden whispering noise distracted him. Grabbing a pillow to cover his head and muffle the sound failed to help any, and eventually he lost it.

"Please!" he begged, "Can't a guy get some sleep around here?" His eyes snapped wide open as he listened to himself speak; his voice was very oddly pitched, as though he had inhaled a balloon's worth of helium. At least the whispers stopped, though.

He heard a giggle. _That_ was new. Looking around, he couldn't see anyone else in his room, but he couldn't help but notice that his normally tidy domicile looked like… well, it looked like his room back at the Tower, so the word "disaster" could safely be applied.

Deciding that the nagging mystery of what had happened last night would prevent him from sleeping, Garfield rolled out of bed and immediately solved one of the mysteries this morning had presented him with: he now knew why his chest felt like there was a cat sitting on it, and why his voice sounded like he had taken a line drive up the middle.

Why exactly he had suddenly sprouted a (rather nice) set of boobs, and presumably the reproductive organs that generally accompanied them… that was a whole _new_ mystery to investigate.

Then he heard the giggle again, and the whispers started anew. Trying his best to block them out (covering his ears did nothing to mute the noise, to his chagrin), he set about picking up the broken glass and assorted debris that littered his room. As he got to the door, he found a burnt spot on the wall, and suddenly the memories of last night's activities came rushing back.

In the back of his mind, the giggling resumed.

* * *

The people (and "people") that Raven dealt with day in and day out noticed that Her Royal Majesty seemed to be in a much better mood than usual. Instead of appearing to be on the verge of killing everyone in sight (as was her preferred method of dissuasion, right after 'terrifying rumors' and 'survivors' testimonies'), the ruler of humanity seemed to be… smug.

_The terror-stricken man quaked visibly as the fireball hit the wall in front of him, cutting off his attempt to escape. "Now R-Rae, we can t-talk this o-over, no n-need to get v-violent." He inched towards the door again, but a portal snapped open beneath his feet and he found himself lying on the bed. Like a deer caught in the headlights—Oh, how she had _missed_ that expression!—he looked over to see her sitting calmly on the side of the bed, her legs crossed and her head propped up on her arm as it rested on her knee, staring at him like a cat playing with a rat before it went in for the kill._

"_But BB," she whined, sending a shiver of… something… down his spine, "I don't _want_ to _talk_ with you." Raven turned to climb fully on the bed and slowly crawled over towards him, grinning toothily. In the back of his mind, Garfield dryly noted that her teeth somehow seemed more frightening than even _his_, in spite of the fact that hers were completely human in appearance. His train of thought derailed as he felt something sharp on his chest, and he looked down to see Raven's tail dragging along his petrified body and neatly slicing through his old Doom Patrol uniform as it travelled._

"_Now," growled Raven's voice, from both everywhere and nowhere at the same time, "I think it's time you give me a daughter."_

The disturbing look of smug satisfaction on Her Royal Majesty's face deepened at the scream of outrage that echoed through the castle.

* * *

**Author's Note**: After a some... confusion... regarding the concluding events of the chapter, I figured I'd come right out and say it: Raven used the trick Malchior taught her to make Garfield a woman (If he can change species, why not gender?) and went and got Garfield pregnant. The giggling and whispering is the kid. Smart kids listen to Mozart in the womb, telepathic kids listen to their mother's (?) thoughts.

There are few things more traumatic for a guy than waking up with a hangover and a dead hooker in bed with you; I imagine that waking up genderbent, pregnant, and sober is one of them.

On a related note, the mention that this is now a male-pregnancy story has been brought up, and I would have to disagree with that conclusion for two reasons. The first, obviously, is that Garfield is anatomically _female_ now. Male pregnancy, as defined by wikipedia (the source of all knowledge), requires the pregnant character to be _male_. I interpret that as having male parts; a bolt instead of a nut, if you will. True, Garfield still identifies as male psychologically, but if that's your definition of gender than male-pregnancy is possible in real life, as transsexual women are as capable of bearing children as any other woman, regardless of their gender identification. I don't think humanity is ready for a world where male-pregnancy is possible. God knows parthenogenesis alone has been wreaking havoc for over two thousand years now.

The second reason that I wouldn't identify this as a male-pregnancy story is that it is not now, nor will it ever be, the central aspect of the story. It's not even close. This story isn't about a guy that gets pregnant and how the world goes bonkers as a result, it's about a girl that goes bonkers and takes over the world, and instead of going through nine months of "I want tofu and roast puppies," morning sickness, bloated feet, compressed bladders, and mood swings (Crazy Raven plus mood swings equals _bad_) she dumps the load on someone else. She probably won't even have the decency to let Garfield break her hand during labor. That Garfield is pregnant isn't a "direction" that I'm taking the story, it's merely a way to express Raven's inner-demon. Nothing more, nothing less. She might use it to embarrass him in a later chapter, she might not. That's pretty much all the attention it's going to get.

**Author's Note 2**: A brief and possibly convoluted defense of the mechanics of the process follows:

The precise mechanics of Garfield's shapeshifting abilities were never explained, only hinted at when Cyborg said that "Because of the shape-shifting, his genetic code was always unstable." Thus, several interpretations of his powers are available for the author (that's me) to use and abuse. The one I favor here is that, Beast Boy's powers are essentially the ability to undergo temporary massive genotypic changes from his base state that result in phenotypic changes; his DNA changes to that of an elephant, and he becomes an elephant. When Raven turned him into a rat in 'Spellbound,' she displayed the ability to hijack his powers and override his conscious control of his body to manipulate it at her will. Gender is a function of genetics, Beast Boy can control his genes, and Raven can override his control. After that, all she has to do is magically perform in-vitro fertilization and _bam_, there's a baby.


End file.
